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Re: The cnet128 Thread

I feel like a moron for asking but where in the world do you get all your raws? Do you actually... like... buy them? Gasp
Cuz I've been looking for Ice Revolution (showing some love) and I can't find 5 or 6 absolutely anywhere.

Re: The cnet128 Thread

Guidelines For Using My Translations

Okay, so I receive PMs fairly regularly asking "can I use your translation for X?" or similar, and a fair amount requesting that I translate other things, and my responses tend to amount to stock answers a lot of the time, so I figure it will be quicker for everyone if I just lay out the ground rules here so that everyone can see them. I intend to link this post from all of my translations from now on, but it applies to translations past, present and future.

Contents1. Who Can Use My Translations2. Working With Scanlators/Groups/etc.3. Translation Requests4. The Basic Format Of My Translations5. Things To Keep In Mind When Typesetting My Translations

1. Who Can Use My Translations
Probably the most common PM I receive is people asking whether they can use my translations for some scanlation or international translation that they're working on. In pretty much every case, the answer is "yes", with the obvious caveat that I have to be credited. As a general rule, all of my translations are free for use in scanlations and international translations as long as I'm credited. If there's an exception, it will be clearly stated as such in the translation itself. The only currently relevant exceptions are my One Piece translations, which (if stated in the translation itself) may not be used for English scanlations until twenty-four hours after Binktopia have made their release.

2. Working With Scanlators/Groups/etc.
With the exception of the above-mentioned deal with Binktopia, I do not work for any scanlation groups. People with conspiracy theories who think that I give my translations to certain groups before I post them on MH and FH: quit theorising, because I don't - and that includes the One Piece translations mentioned above. As a rule, I dislike being tied down to a single group, and prefer my translations to be free for all to read and use. If you want to contact me asking "do you want to work for X group on Y project?", the answer is almost certainly going to be no, so I wouldn't bother if I were you.

My priority is getting my translations out there in scanlations as quickly as possible, and my secondary priority is getting them out there in good-quality scanlations, so for me to even consider an exclusive deal, you would have to basically guarantee to me that you would get the scanlation out before anyone else, and in pretty high quality. Of course, if there are exceptional circumstances, I may be willing to listen to what you have to say, but as a general rule: no. My deal with Binktopia was made only because I know from experience that I can trust them to release both quickly and in high quality, and even so I agreed only after we established that there were numerous benefits to the agreement on both sides, and I still refused to grant them full exclusivity.

I am, however, perfectly happy to "work with" groups (and indeed fans) in terms of having a friendly relationship. My MSN screenname is cnet128-at-hotmail.com, and on AIM (which is my preferred means of communication), my screenname is cnet256. Feel free to contact me through these two mediums, or through PM, or by posting in my personal thread (linked in my signature); I'll probably be happy to talk, and happy to tell you how far along I am with a certain translation, and let you know when it's finished (though of course I'm not perfect, so don't blame me if I forget to mention it). On a similar note, I always appreciate a heads-up when RAWs do come out, especially if they're unusually early or late, since I sometimes don't spot them, and then get irritated when other people beat me to the mark as a result.

3. Translation Requests
So you want to ask me if I'll translate something or other that you're interested in. Well, first of all, if it's a manga series, then be prepared for an answer in the negative. That doesn't mean you shouldn't mention it to me - I don't have anything against people recommending me series - but don't expect me to pick up a new series just because you ask me to. In the vast majority of cases, the answer will be "no", because I only pick up series because I'm interested and really want to translate them; if I picked up every series that some random user asked me to translate, then I'd be even more weighed down than I am right now, and that's saying something. Indeed, if you send me a PM asking me to translate a series, don't be surprised if you receive no reply. Don't take it as an insult - I just have a bad habit of reading them, thinking "eh, probably no, might think about it later", and then not bothering to respond.

The same thing generally goes for individual chapters of manga series that I don't read, because... well, just no. I translate chapters of series because I read them. I don't feel like jumping into some random series in the middle of the storyline and translating a whole chapter out of context. That's no fun. (I have very rarely done this in the past, but only because I owed the person asking a favour.)

Outside of translating new series/random chapters, though, I'm much more likely to be accommodating. Ask me to translate a random Japanese phrase or short passage that you're wondering about, and I'll generally be happy to comply - though do me a favour and give me more than just a random phrase plucked out of nowhere; it's often difficult to translate these things without the proper context. Likewise, translations of short video clips, etc, such as trailers or videogames, I'll often be willing to translate if I have the time. Song lyrics are worth asking me about, too, though you may fall victim to my "can't be bothered to respond" habit if I don't feel like doing it. One thing that I don't particularly like being asked about is SFX in manga, because it's often a pain in the ass both to work out what they're doing there and to find an English equivalent, but if you really want to know, I'll at least be able to give you the direct transliteration into romaji, and maybe some insight into what it represents.

4. The Basic Format Of My Translations
Most of this is fairly self-explanatory, but I'd appreciate it if typesetters could read it anyway, just to make sure they're clear on what they're dealing with.

=Overall=Layout: By the order it appears on the page; that is to say, right-to-left, top-to-bottom. The only occasional exception is the manga title, chapter name and insert/side text, which I will often (but not always) place at the top of the page it appears on regardless of where it is actually placed. Double-pages: Treated, without exception, as one large page. Don't get confused by the fact that text on the second page may come before some text on the first page.SFX policy: Generally left untranslated (so if you see text that looks like SFX, and it isn't translated, don't be surprised). When I do include it, it's because I feel something would be lost without it, so it should be included in any scanlations. Only exception is xxxHOLiC (and the finished Hatsukoi) where I translate all SFX (but that doesn't mean you have to include it when editing).Complex areas: If there's a section where the order of text is unclear, I'll generally attempt to clarify through creative use of markers ([top-right text: whatever], [left-hand text: whatever], [just below that: whatever], etc). This is usually only relevant for complex diagrams, maps or whatever, though; ordinary speech is generally clear enough from the flow of the bubbles and the character names.

=Elements=Manga title: Usually stands alone at the top of the page it appears on, regardless of where it appears on the page. If not at the top of the page, appears within square brackets for clarity.Chapter title: Usually stands alone directly beneath the manga title. If it appears on a separate page to the manga title, stands alone at the top of that page. If not at the top of the page, appears within square brackets for clarity.Editorial text: That is, the intro/outroductory text that generally appears at the beginning and end of a chapter, and is removed for volume releases. Appears in square brackets, with markers such as [Insert text: whatever], [Side text: whatever], [Bottom text: whatever], depending on where it appears on the page. These markers are used only for editorial text. "Bottom text" in particular is generally the preview text for the next chapter (or text indicating an upcoming break).Speech: The only element besides the manga/chapter title to appear outside square brackets. Marked by the character's name followed by a colon, script-style. (If I don't know the name, or it isn't clear who's speaking, I may come up with a random identifier for the character on the spot, or just use something generic like "People".)Thoughts: A subset of speech, and so does not appear in square brackets. Differentiated from speech by appearing in (parentheses) - naturally, these should not be included when typesetting. This includes thoughts in "thought bubbles", thoughts outside bubbles, and spoken text in "thought bubbles" (sometimes used to show whispering etc).Narrative text: Appears in square brackets, with markers such as [Text: whatever], [Box: whatever], [Label: whatever], [Note: whatever], etc. The differences between them should be fairly self-explanatory.Sound effects: When included, appears in square brackets, with the marker [SFX: whatever] or [BubbleSFX: whatever] depending on whether it appears in a bubble or not.Translator's notes: Appears in square brackets, with the marker [TN: whatever]. Includes clarifications of the text, as well as my own personal comments.No-text markers: When a page doesn't include text, rather than just missing it out or leaving a lone page number, I include a comment in square brackets, generally of the form [no text, but (insert not-very-witty comment here)]. I'm led to believe people like these, though Lord knows why. XDSpecial segments: Occasionally I will mark off certain segments of text with mock tags (such as [Letter] whatever [/Letter]), so that I can include a multiple-line element, for instance, a letter, formatted as it appears in the manga, without regard for my usual formatting conventions.

=Subdivisions=Slashes: My basic way of dividing up text. For ordinary speech, and other text that appears in bubbles or boxes, a single slash indicates moving to an adjacent segment of the same bubble, whereas a double-slash indicates moving to a different bubble entirely. This is a pretty hard-and-fast rule, so if you find yourself breaking it, chances are either you're typesetting it wrong, or I've missed some text somewhere. If in doubt, ask me directly. For text that doesn't appear in bubbles, the distinction is less clear; basically a double-slash indicates more space between the blocks of text than a single-slash.Aside text: The mock-tag [aside]whatever[/aside] indicates smaller-font text generally used to indicate "aside remarks" made by characters, often in the background. Always separated from ordinary speech by at least a single-slash, even if it appears within the same bubble; if it doesn't, a double-slash is usually employed. This can extend to more than just speech; aside text can occur within thoughts, and even within editorial text (I've been known to use the marker [Aside insert text: whatever] when editorial text includes this).

5. Things To Keep In Mind When Typesetting My Translations
First things first: I herald from England, and as such my translations are in British English, also known as "real English", or just "English", as opposed to "American", its bastardised cousin that nobody likes. I do not condone the editing of my translations to comply with American conventions. So, for instance, -ise should not be "corrected" to -ize, and nor should "colour" to "color", "honour" to "honor", "aluminium" to "aluminum", "got" to "gotten", etc. These are not misspellings, merely things that Americans insist on getting wrong.

That said, if you spot things in my translations that quite obviously are spelling errors, then by all means fix them (and inform me, too, so that I can correct them). Use your common sense. If in doubt, use a dictionary, or better still, ask me personally. (And be careful - there are occasions when I'll use unusual spelling on purpose, for instance to indicate odd speech patterns.)

Likewise, if you spot things like numbers in my translations that you can tell are wrong (either from looking at the RAW and seeing that they're different, or from context), then don't just copy them down blindly; correct them if they're obviously wrong, or consult me if you're not sure. I do have a nasty tendency to screw up on silly things like that, so there's a good chance you've spotted a genuine mistake. However, if you don't know any Japanese, don't get overconfident that just because the number I've written doesn't seem to match what you can see in the RAW, that means it's automatically wrong; the Japanese love writing mixed numerals, and their number system is based on factors of ten-thousand rather than one-thousand like ours, so just spotting numerals in the RAWs can be a little misleading. (For instance, 10万50 means "100,050", which certainly wouldn't be obvious at first glance to an English speaker). Also, if the chapter number doesn't match that in the RAW, it could be because the chapter number in the RAW is wrong (but if so, I'll generally mention it).

Speaking of which, if that 万 doesn't show up properly as a Japanese character on your system, then you might want to set up support for Japanese text, or some characters that I use in my translations won't show up properly for you. Common examples are hearts (♡, ♥), stars (☆, ★), and musical notes (♪), but I also end up using Japanese characters, for instance, when directly copying down Japanese emoticons that appear in the text, and so on. Please do try and retain these as-is when you're typesetting.

Now, this is an important one: it's the spirit of the text that's most important, not copying it down exactly as it appears. That does NOT mean that I approve of you inserting random exclamation marks where I haven't put them, or anything like that (yes, I've seen people do this, gratuitously, and yes, it looked horrible), but at the same time, use your head, and don't just hit copy-paste without even looking at what you're copying and pasting. If I've used gratuitous ~~~~~ marks to indicate lengthened sounds, then for godssakes don't allow them to run haphazardly onto multiple lines in your scanlation, because that looks hideous; in fact, you're better off replacing them altogether with one nice unified wavy line - that's generally how it appeared in the original text; I'm only using individual wavy-dashes because that's the closest thing I have available in the plain-text format. A centred wavy line, too, please; I know some fonts render "~" marks as aligned above the text, which looks even worse. If the text bubble in question is a great big vertical exclamation, then please consider using a vertical wavy line rather than a horizontal one with lots of line breaks. Common sense, people.

Likewise, if you just copy-and-paste my text without thinking about what you're doing, you're in danger of losing emphasis or vital formatting. Italics and bolding should always be preserved in some form, at least. I know a worrying number of typesetters also seem to strip out any accents from characters (so that, for instance, "Gérard" becomes just "Gerard" in the final scanlation), which is ugly as well. Perhaps the most ubiquitous example is capitalisation; when I render a portion of text (particularly if it's a single word) in all-caps for emphasis, this is often lost completely in the scanlation, because the typesetter is rendering all the text in all-caps, and didn't think to include the emphasis in some way. Bolding or increasing the size of the text in question would seem like simple, obvious ways of dealing with this. Similarly, initial capitalisation (for proper nouns and such) is often lost completely as well,making the resulting text less clear; perhaps a small-caps system, where the capitalised letters appear larger, could be used to avoid this?

Finally, about translation notes. If you've ever read my translations, you're probably aware that I write all sorts of different translation notes, including my own thoughts on the chapter, English translations of things left untranslated, and clarifications, sometimes fairly in-depth, of things that were untranslatable or relevant background information. Whether you include these translation notes in scanlations is up to your own judgement. If you do, you don't have to include them exactly as I've written them; feel free to trim them down or tidy them up as necessary. In general, I think that when I include English versions of untranslated elements, it's a good idea to include those in the scanlation as outside-panel footnotes. Less so for the clarifications and background information, especially if they're lengthy, but by all means trim them down to the important information and leave them in (or just include them as an afterword) if you feel it's worthwhile. And as for my personal comments... well, obviously you don't have to put those in, though I guess you can if you like! XD

Re: The cnet128 Thread

Yo Cnet im a huge fan of your tranlations being a grammar nazi is ok as for the part of the english thing im not good at it myself because is not my native language. But oh well, thanks for all the hard work.

Anyways my question is that if you take commissions for translating something, i have in the past sent you pm about this matter and havent had an answer, as you say in this last post of yours, is not because you dont want to answer, but as i see that you specify everything you are willing to translate, i feel like the "translations for money" are needed, because i have one or two things that i would like you to translate, about bleach specifically but i know they are a pain without no motivation, so if you can add something about payed translations i would be really glad.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post, i can be a really annoyance because i have hard times explaining myself n_n

Re: The cnet128 Thread

Hi there :'D

My question: Are you going to continue translating Reborn! ?

I love your and kirimi's translations, however, kirimi is seemingly so busy that she cannot translate the chaps anymore. So, I really do hope that you will have the time to translate them in the future as well. Thanks for reading and answering my question!